By James Romoser
Journal Raleigh bureau
RALEIGH, N.C. — At a young age, Tim Lasley began training to become a firefighter, and it’s a calling that he’s followed his entire life.

Lasley, who is now the fire chief of the Vienna volunteer fire department in western Forsyth County, enrolled in the state’s junior firefighter program at age 15 back in 1975.

“As soon as I was 16, I was driving a fire truck,” Lasley said.

Sixteen-year-olds are no longer allowed to drive fire trucks. But the junior firefighter program has become even more important, as community fire departments struggle to recruit volunteers.

But last year, a state commission enacted a “junior member standard” based on federal child-labor laws. The effect of the standard has been to hamper many of the training exercises that local instructors felt they were authorized to undertake with teenagers.

Lasley and other fire chiefs decided to speak up about it.

“The best way to get them is to grow them,” Lasley said. His Vienna department has 12 junior firefighters who participate in three-hour training exercises every Monday night.

Lasley relies on the junior program as a pipeline for new volunteers, because adult volunteers with full-time careers are increasingly unable to serve.

A big reason can be traced to the transformation of the economy and the rise of the commuter culture, said Wayne Goodwin, the state’s commissioner of insurance and the state’s fire marshal.

“It used to be that a junior firefighter, or any firefighter, would work in their town, or nearby, and if the call came from their department, if there was a fire or some emergency, they could quickly return to the department and gear up and head out to protect life and home,” Goodwin said.

But as that situation becomes less common and adult volunteers decline, local fire chiefs are turning to the junior program, which trains teenagers to become fire and rescue responders. For some teens who go through the program, it takes just a few months for them to become full firefighters once they turn 18.

Without the training, it would take two years.

In addition to the obvious effect on public safety, having a well-trained, fully-staffed crew of volunteer firefighters can reduce homeowners’ insurance rates, Goodwin said.

“Once you attract and train young folks to serve as junior firefighters, history shows that you will have them for decades if not for their working life,” he said. “So it’s an investment.”

Lasley said the changes made by the Fire and Rescue Commission, which is under the N.C. Department of Insurance prevented teens from tasks as simple as wearing breathing equipment, climbing a ladder 4 feet off the ground, or holding a “Jaws of Life” rescue tool.

Lasley happened to raise the issue in a conversation with state Rep. Dale Folwell, R-Forsyth. Meanwhile, Goodwin, a Democrat, was hearing about the problem around the state as he campaigned for insurance commissioner.

Folwell, with Goodwin’s support, sponsored a simple bill in the General Assembly that clarified state law and ensured that fire departments could continue training their junior firefighters. The bill has been approved by both chambers of the General Assembly, and Gov. Bev Perdue is scheduled to sign it today.

Strict rules about what junior firefighters can and can’t do will remain in place.

For instance, the juniors are allowed to go to the scene of a fire or other emergency, but they can’t ride in the fire truck, and they can play only a support role that doesn’t put them in immediate danger. Once on scene,

Lasley said, the teens might help out by retrieving equipment or hooking up hosing.

“We’re not advocating that they run emergency calls and participate,” he said. “We just want to train them.”

James Romoser can be reached at 919-210-6794 or at jromoser@wsjournal.com.